Revised September 21, 2004

PLCP 551: DOMESTIC POLITICS OF CHINA

Fall 2004

Tuesday, 7-9:30pm, Cabell 130

The class website is: http://toolkit.virginia.edu/plcp551-1

Mr Brantly Womack

Office: Cabell 202

Phone: 924-7008; email: bwomack@virginia.edu

Office hours: Thursday, 10:30-11:30, 2:00-3:00,

and by arrangement

DESCRIPTION: This course provides a general, graduate-level introduction to Chinese domestic politics. It gives a general overview of the structures, dynamics and challenges of Chinese domestic politics, and it provides structured opportunities for research concerning current national politics and also provincial diversification.

PROGRAM: The course is divided into two major sections, the first providing a comprehensive introduction to Chinese politics and the second treating selected themes in more detail. The first section will end with a test in week 10 (November 2). The second section will consider the themes of center-local relations (week 11) and local politics (week 12). The course ends with provincial diversity (class research reports in weeks 13-14) and China in world context (week 15). The last topic considers Chinese politics in the more general framework of comparative communism.

REQUIREMENTS: The basic expectation is that students will participate actively in the course by completing the assigned readings on time and joining in class discussion. Additionally, there will be an exam on November 2, a research project on current Chinese politics, a provincial research project in two parts, and a final exam with the same format as the midterm. The two in-class exams will combine short-answer and essay questions. The research project on current politics will involve an analysis of the salience of the political transition since the 16^th Party Congress in 2002. The provincial research project will be a coordinated class study of diversification in China's provinces. It is divided into two parts. The first part involves a comparison of one province with other provinces. Data will be provided, and a questionnaire will be filled out, together with a 5 page analytical essay on the province’s relative situation within China. In the second part each student will make a structured and comprehensive study of the same province (10-15pp) and present it in class. Historical data will be supplied, but students will also be expected to locate other research resources. Students with previous background on Chinese politics can elect to write a research paper (20-30 pp) instead of taking the final exam and completing the second part of the provincial project. The course grade will be composed as follows: midterm exam 25%, current politics project 15%, provincial project 10% +25%, final exam 15%, alternative research paper 40%, participation 10%. The final will be on Tuesday, December14.

Required readings

The required readings listed below are on electronic reserve at the class toolkit website. Readings from the Journal of Contemporary China (JCC) are available full-text through Virgo, and some are also on the class website. If JCC is inaccessible from the syllabus links, it can be reached through searching Virgo journals. Readings from China Leadership Monitor (CLM) are directly available online at http://www.chinaleadershipmonitor.org/.

Most materials are available both through hot links on the syllabus and on the “materials” section of the class website; some are only available by one or the other means. Except for subdirectories, materials on toolkit are listed by week of assignment, though not all assigned materials are on toolkit.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Week Date

Monday

I. GENERAL OVERVIEW

2 9/7 Introduction

REQ Brantly Womack, “China’s Basic Parameters,” ms.

The best general bibliography for the study of Chinese politics is maintained by Lynn White of Princeton: Chinabibliography . Please look at it.

REC: For those with little background on Chinese politics the following is a comprehensive though somewhat dated summary in 50 pages. Womack and Townsend, "China," from Almond and Powell, Comparative Politics Today, available on Toolkit as Womack.Politics-In-China, Pt-4.pdf.

3 9/14 Traditional politics, chaos, and rural revolution

REQ: Abbé Huc, “The Chinese Empire,” in Franz Schurmann and Orville Schell, Imperial China (New York: Vintage, 1967), pp. 23-33.

Mao Zedong, “Hunan Report,” “Why is it that Red political power can exist in China,” “Be concerned with the well-being of the masses,” Selected Works, vol. 1

Womack, “The Phases of Chinese Modernization,” in Steve Chin, ed., Modernization in China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1979, pp. 1-15.

Womack, “In Search of Democracy,” in Brantly Womack, ed., Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective, pp. 53-89.

REC: Tang Tsou, "Reflections on the Formation and Foundations of the Communist Party-State in China," in Tsou, The Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Reforms, pp. 25

Womack, “The Party and the People: Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary Politics in Vietnam and China," World Politics, July 1987.9-334.

4 /21 Political evolution and institutions of the PRC

REQ: Table: Phases of Chinese politics

Townsend and Womack, Ch 3, “The political framework,” in Politics in China, 3^rd Ed. (Little, Brown, 1986), pp. 82-107.

Kenneth Lieberthal, Ch 4: “The Maoist Era,” in Governing China (Norton, 1995), pp. 85-121.

Womack, “"Modernization and Democratic Reform in China." Journal of Asian Studies 43:3 (May 1984), pp. 417-440.

Womack, "Party-State Democracy: A Theoretical Exploration." Issues and Studies, 25:3 (March 1989), pp. 37-57.

Tang Tsou, “The Tiananmen Tragedy,” in Brantly Womack, ed., Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective, pp.265-327.

Jonathan Unger, “Chongqing,” in Unger, ed., Popular Protests in China: Reports from the Provinces (Armonk: ME Sharpe, 1991) 106-126.

5 /28 Economic Reform and Politics

REQ: 20-year table of economic development

Development tables.

Provincial disparity

Joseph Fewsmith, “Continuing Pressures on Social Order,” China Leadership Monitor (CLM) no. 10 (Spring 2004).

Barry Naughton, “Hunkering Down: The Wen Jiabao Administration and Macroeconomic Recontrol,” CLM 11 (Summer 2004)

Xu Feiqiong, “A study on the poverty issues in China,” Omnibus of Best Poverty Papers (Beijing: China Economics Publishing House, 2001), vol. 1, pp. 384-415.

People’s Daily Online, August 12, 2004, “China's development at a critical point--common prosperity or half in poverty?”

China Daily, August 26, 2003, “China’s Economy Faces Stiff Challenges.”

REC: UNCTAD 2003 Trade and Development Report, Chapter 5: “Industrialization, Trade, and Structural Change.”

UNCTAD 2002 Trade and Development Report, “Overview,” “Chapter 5: China’s accession to WTO.”

Yushan Wu, “Chinese Economic Reform in Comparative perspective: Asia and Europe,” Issues and Studies 38:4 (December 2002/March 2003), pp. 93-138.

Wing-thye Woo, “A United Front for the Common Objective to Understand China’s Economic Growth: A Case of Nonantagonistic Contradiction, Wu vs. Woo”, Issues and Studies 39:2 (June 2003), pp. 1-23.

Yushan Wu, “Institutions and Policy must bear the Responsibility: Another Case of Nonantagonistic Contradiction,” Issues and Studies 39:2 (June 2003), pp. 24-40.

6 10/5 The National People’s Congress

REQ: Hu Jintao, “Speech at the 50^th anniversary of the NPC,” People’s Daily Online, September 15, 2004.

Wei Pan, “Toward a Consultative Rule of Law Regime in China,” Journal of Contemporary China 12:34 (2003), pp. 3-43

Kevin O’Brien, “China’s National People’s Congress: Reform and Its Limits,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 13:3 (August 1988), pp. 343-374.

Ming Xia, “Political Contestation and the Emergence of the Provincial People's Congresses as Power Players in Chinese Politics: a network explanation,” Journal of Contemporary China 9:24 (July 2000), p. 185-214.

Kevin O’Brien, “Agents and Remonstrators: Role Accumulation by People’s Congress Deputies,” China Quarterly no. 138 (June 1994), pp. 359-380.

Jiang Jinsong, The National People’s Congress of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2002), “Reforming the NPC,” pp. 76-85; Chapter 8, “The NPC in China’s Constitutional Government,” pp. 116-153; Chapter 9, Internal Structure of the NPC,” 156-175; “Peaceful competition between the NPC and Western legislatures,” pp. 529-532; Chapter 23, “The Model of the NPC,” pp. 539-560. [All in the NPC subdirectory of Toolkit]

REC: 1982 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China

1982 Constitution of the Communist Party of China

7 10/12 Reading day

8 10/19 Politics since Tiananmen

REQ: Zhang Weiwei, “China’s Political Transition.” October 2003.

Joseph Fewsmith, “Is Political Reform Ahead?—Beijing Confronts Problems Facing Society—and the CCP,” in China Leadership Monitor 1 (December 2002).

Lyman Miller, “The Road to the Sixteenth Party Congress,” in China Leadership Monitor 1 (December 2002).

Lyman Miller, “The 10th National People's Congress and China's Leadership Transition,” in China Leadership Monitor 7 (Summer 2003).

“Shades of Red,” Asiaweek, September 2, 2001.

Womack, "The Problem of Isms: Pragmatic Orthodoxy and Liberalization in Mainland China," Issues and Studies 30:12 (December), pp. 1-21.

Womack, “Party-State Democracy and the Three Represents: A Theoretical Perspective,” in Political Civilization and Modernization in China, Vol. 3: The Political Context of China’s Modernization (Beijing: People’s University, 2004), pp. 157-178.

Cheng Li, “Analysis of Current Provincial Leaders,” in China Leadership Monitor 7 (Summer 2003).

REC:

9 10/26 Chinese politics today

Papers on contemporary problems due.

REQ: Fewsmith, ”China's Response to SARS,” in China Leadership Monitor 7 (Summer 2003).

Fewsmith, “Promoting the scientific development concept,” CLM 11 (Summer 2004)

Lyman Miller, “Where have all the Party elders gone?”, CLM 10 (Spring 2004)

Lyman Miller, “Party Politburo processes under Hu,” CLM 11 (Summer 2004).

Hu Jintao, “Speech on Mao Zedong’s 110 anniversary,” FBIS December 26, 2003.

10 11/2 First test

II. SPECIAL TOPICS

11 11/9 Center-local relationships

REQ: Peter Cheung, “Provincial Leadership and Economic Reform in Post-Mao China,” in Cheung, Chung, and Lin, eds., Provincial Strategies of Economic Reform in Post-Mao China (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), pp. 3-48.

Qingshan Tan, “Growth Disparity in China: provincial causes,” Journal of Contemporary China 11:33 (735-760), pp. 735-759

Keith Forster, “Zhejiang: Paradoxes of Restoration, Reinvigoration, and Renewal,” in David Goodman, ed., China’s Provinces in Reform (London: Routledge, 1997), 237-271.

Michael Davis, “The case for Chinese federalism,” Journal of Democracy 10:2 (April 1999), pp. 124-137.

12 11/16 Local politics

REQ: Huang Jingao materials in Toolkit subdirectory

Jie Chen, “Subjective Motivations for mass political participation in urban China,” Social Science Quarterly, 81:2 (2000), pp. 645-662.

Weixing Chen, “Control from the Center in the Reform Era in China,” in Guoli Liu and Weixing Chen, eds., New Directions in Chinese Politics (Mellen, 2002).

Guo Zhenglin, Thomas Bernstein, “The impact of elections on the village structure of power,” Journal of Contemporary China 13:39 (Spring 2004), pp. 257-279.

More to be added.

13 11/23 Provinces I

student presentations

<<Provincial papers due>>

14 11/30 Provinces II

student presentations

15 12/7 China in the world

REQ: Womack, "Asian Communism" Miller Center Occasional Paper.

SECOND TEST: Tuesday 14 December, 7 pm

GFCP551 Chinese Politics Fall 2001

Semester Overview

Week Date Topic

2 9/7 Introduction

3 9/14 Traditional politics, chaos and

rural revolution

4 /21 Political evolution and institutions of PRC

5 /28 Economic reform and politics

6 10/5 The National People’s Congress

7 10/12 reading day

8 /19 Politics and attitudes since Tiananmen

9 /26 Chinese politics today current politics project due

10 11/2 First Test

11 11/9 Center-local relations Comparative Provincial project due

12 /16 Local politics

13 /23 Provincial reports Comprehensive Provincial projects

due

/25 Thanksgiving

14 /30 Provincial reports

15 12/7 China and the world

second test Tuesday, 14 December at 7pm